Skip to main content

Writing What You Don't Know

"Any story, no matter how wild and seemingly removed from any writer's life, is autobiographical, since it comes from the writer's observations and attitudes about the world.  A book is an MRI of the writer's brain, revealing all its strengths and weaknesses."

-Richard Kadrey


I have said before that Antiartists is not about me.  This is true, in that the events depicted in the book never happened to me.  I am not an artist, I have never been to rehab, I have never been expelled from school, I have never worked at a gas station, I have never engaged in cutting, or vandalism, I have never liked prescription drugs as a form of recreation.  So it is clearly not about me, right?

Except friends that have read the book have said that they hear my voice in it, can tell that I wrote it, can see my ideals reflected there.  Honestly, I don't know if this book is about me or not. 

I did realize, somewhat too late, that all of the male characters represent me or a part of me in some way:  The Father, The Addict, The Outsider, The Zealot, The Simpleton, The Sage, The Lost Son, The Artist, The Failure, The Orphan, The Destroyer.

So the book is true, in a way, a completely non-factual truth.

I sit here at my desk wondering if all I have done is written a mirror so I can see myself from the outside.  Maybe this book isn't for other people at all.

The cliche is to write what you know, but what ended up happening for me is I wrote, and learned things I didn't know, exposed gaping holes in my understanding of events and choices in my own life.

I don't know anything, so I write.

There is a certain measure of catharsis that comes with the act.  It becomes a way to express things without having to take responsibility for them.  You can always say, that's not me, don't you know what the word fiction means?  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  You can explore everything you are afraid of, everything that you hate about yourself, everything that you fear to be true.  You get to control everything and make the world make sense.  You can make yourself a villain and a hero, and you get to decide who wins.

The book is not about me, but really it is.

I don't know why I do this, and, God's honest truth, today I am struggling to find a reason to keep on going with it.

I am sitting here thinking about myself, and my generation of friends growing up, and wondering if we, any of us, had a real shot at being anything other that what we were born to be, what we were made to be.  Did any of us have a goddamn chance at all?

And again I find myself with my head thrown back, my jaw clenched, my eyes blasted wide open reminding myself to breathe deeply and slowly, reminding myself to hide behind my plastic smile and clever banter so no one will see me feeling anything.

I don't know anything.

Still Writing,

RP



  

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Dance of the Sand Hill Crane

 It is Saturday morning in Feburary and here in Michigan it is clear and cold.  The sun has risen a while ago but there are still streaks of red in the sky, lighting up the clouds, high and wispy.  I am standing by my car after completing some chore, cleaning something or retrieving something and I am slow breathing, trying to calm my heart. It has been a difficult week. My son has a fight tonight, full contact MMA, his first, and I am full of conflict and anxiety about it. Not because I don't believe he will do well, because I know he is as prepared as anyone can be for such a thing, but because I am a father and I feel like I should be protecting him from the violence of the world. Even though he turns nineteen in a few weeks and is stronger both physically and mentally than I could ever hope to be, he is still my boy, and I am scared for him. My other son is fifteen and this week was embroiled in some stupid conflict at school, a misunderstanding that had led to meetings with th

One of the Best of Us

In the stifling heat my breath comes fast and heavy. What the fuck am I even doing here? What the fuck am I trying to accomplish? I'm sitting on the mat, maybe dying, a forty something dad playacting at being a fighter. This is my mid-life crisis, this is so, so stupid. This has to be the end for me, assuming I can get my heartbeat under control, assuming I don't just peg out here on the mat.  I can't do this anymore. "It's okay man, it's okay, you just need to breathe through it. You're fine, you're okay." The voice of my training partner, gentle and kind. My partner, the maniac that drove me to such a state, that I think I might die, he sits next to me and shows me how to breathe, how to calm my body. He teaches and guides me through it, and in a few minutes I actually am okay, the panic settles down, and maybe this isn't my last class after all. "You're alright?  Okay. Now lets get back to work."  And back to work we go. There

A Soap Bubble Nothing

I built a table, out of wood.  I made a thing that wasn't there before.  I cut and sanded the wood, I drilled in screws, and now we have a table where we didn't have one before. It is real and solid and you can touch it, you can feel where I cut poorly, see the rough edges where I didn't join the wood correctly, you can lift it, feel its weight.  It is a real thing that I made.  I made a table. This is not a table, this is a nothing, a series of random thoughts that I had in the shower, which is where thoughts come from. What if our souls are soap bubbles, what if we spread ourselves too thin, stretched out and flattened? What happens when it pops, would you even notice, would you even care? What if we are meant for something more? I am already behind schedule this year I've got work to do, I have things to accomplish, friends ask me questions ask for favors and all I say is yes yes yes and- What is this?  What am I hoping to do here writhing I meant to write "writ